


Rebel Heart

by ABookAndACoffee



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Angst, F/M, Mating Bond, Post-ACOFAS
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 06:37:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15309597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ABookAndACoffee/pseuds/ABookAndACoffee
Summary: Elain can no longer ignore the pull of the mating bond when Lucien unwittingly calls for her, and finds herself involved in his scheme to free Vassa from her curse. Meanwhile, they try to figure out what the bond means for both of them.





	Rebel Heart

**Author's Note:**

> As per usual with me, I have no idea how long this is going to be or how often I am going to update! Though it will probably get more angsty/smutty.

Elain tossed and turned in bed all night. It wasn’t unusual; since her dip into the Cauldron, Elain had found herself at odds with her own body. Sleep, like any other normal need, had become alien to her. She heard her own breath at all hours, could place her palm against her chest to feel what was like a thunderous heartbeat belonging to someone else. Food had taken on flavors that reminded her of nothing from her childhood. Her mother’s tart cherry pies, even Feyre’s roasted meat, it was as if it had all been taken from her a second time.

Even the feeling of being in love had been stolen and replaced with something unfamiliar. That ache might have been the worst of all the changes, and Elain wished she didn’t have new faculties which made it so much easier to feel. Some days, she wondered why she couldn’t hear the shards of her heart as they splintered in her chest.

When she felt the tug on her rib that night, Elain ignored it at first. This pull wasn’t something she ever indulged in, not when every other part of her body was screaming for attention. 

She hadn’t felt it in months. Not since Lucien had come by, given Feyre those gloves. 

The old Elain might have disdained them. Feeling dirt and roots between her fingers, knowing that she was still tethered to the earth in some way, it was all that kept the dreams and nightmares at bay. 

Now, everything was too sharp. Too feral and clear, threatening to converge on her senses every minute of the day, and the dank, cramped cabin in the woods was a lifetime ago. 

No one had ever told her that experiencing the world came at such a cost.

And so what Elain didn’t tell Feyre, what she didn’t tell anyone, was that she was more grateful for those gloves than anyone could know. To experience her old love of handling the earth while keeping it from overwhelming her, it was all she wanted. Lucien had never gone through what she had. He had never been mortal, and then Made, the world rushing in around him until the past, present, and future all blurred. But somehow, he had known.

Of course she couldn’t use them. She might as well place a sign on her head as a claimed female. Claimed, as if he had bought her for so little as the worked leather and stitching, the spell Lucien had placed on them. 

Elain felt another insistent pull, as if her center were drawn in a certain direction, her limbs forced to either comply, or follow like so many useless things. She sat up in her bed, her nightgown nearly sheer with sweat. She felt a breeze coming from the window, chilling her damp skin. 

Her bedroom window looked out over the Sidra, giving Elain the sense that there was a way out. That she would never take that path away from her sisters hardly mattered. There was something lively and calming at the same time in the waters that refused to be bound. 

Again, a pull. Elain looked down at her stomach, frowning. She placed a palm just below her breast, trying to separate herself from the man she knew was on the other end.

Lucien.

Surely if this feeling extended itself through walls and across oceans and continents, her hand would be no barrier. Elain’s hand dropped to her side, useless. 

If Elain squinted, she could see a hint of sunlight coming the horizon. Everyone else would still be asleep. She threw her sheets aside and swung her legs around, her feet coming into contact with the cold floor. She flinched away from it before placing her weight on them and coming to a stand. 

Something must have been wrong. There could be no other reason - none that she would accept, at least - for him to call on her like this, so insistently, at all hours.

For a moment, Elain considered calling Feyre. Feyre could surely discover where Lucien was, explain to her how the bond worked and how to ignore it. Perhaps she would have sent Cassian or Azriel to remind him that while she had neither accepted nor rejected the bond, she was in no way beholden to Lucien.

Then again, that’s what Elain would have done her entire life, leave it to Feyre or Nesta to figure out, to solve. But Feyre was in a fragile condition, being newly pregnant, and Nesta was still indefinitely indisposed. She surely wouldn’t want to help Elain with anything related to the son of a High Lord who might make claims on her, anyway. 

Elain let her damp nightgown fall to a puddle at her feet, and walked towards her bathtub. If she was going to make a journey of indeterminant length to lands she’d never visited before, she would at least ensure she began with a bath.

There was a tug, and another in quick succession. Elain looked down at her bare stomach and glared. “Stop it!” 

She clenched her fists and then let out a quick laugh. Surely the bond didn’t work quite like that. She knew that Rhys and Feyre had ways of communicating with one another, but she hadn’t bothered asking. Now, she wondered if it might have been wise.

Elain looked again towards her large window, watching the sunlight make its way incrementally into the world. Quietly, quickly, she made her plans to leave, to follow where this instinct might take her. 

*****

The continent was nothing like Elain expected.

The trip across the sea had been less than forgiving on her constitution. It turned out that Elain was prone to seasickness, and she assumed it was worse now than it would have been, before, as a mortal. She was in a constant state of discovery, much of it unpleasant. 

Elain had assumed that an unknown world would also be untamed, but it was nothing of the sort. The port she sailed into was bustling, busy, dirty, loud. Merchants yelled into the streets about their wares, and she fended off more than one grubby hand that wandered into her pockets. 

She eyed those who touted themselves to be guides before settling on a lesser fae who seemed as wary of her as she was of them. Their skin was pale blue and slick, as if they had sprung from the ocean itself. It had a hunched back and long, spindly fingers that seemed to taste the air. In approaching the fae, Elain steeled herself. 

The blue creature looked Elain up and down, correcting their own posture before speaking. 

“You need assistance? To find someone?” they asked. 

Elain nodded. “Yes. What’s your price?”

The creature smiled, and Elain wished she knew the name for such a thing. There were few things in the world she was unable to classify. Or at least there had been, before crossing the wall. She was vexed now to realize how much she didn’t know.

“Well, beauty, I think that one of your secrets would do nicely.” They held up a finger. “Elain Archeron. Doe, dove, dearest one.”

Elain cocked her head. “And you are?”

The creature merely smiled, refusing to answer. It knew, then, what she could do. But she wouldn't be tested. 

Elain shook her head. “No. Tell me your name.”

“Amura. Pleased to meet you, my lady.” Amura raised their hand, fingers fanning the air in anticipation. 

Elain gripped Amura’s hand in her own with more force than was necessary, but when she did, something in that told her to trust. While she didn’t understand how she knew, she knew enough to trust her newfound instincts. After all, they had been as enhanced as the rest of her. 

The problem with securing transportation was that Elain didn’t know exactly where she was going, only the direction in which she was being pulled. When she explained this to Amura, the fae smiled. 

“A lover? A mate? A husband?” the fae asked. 

Elain shook her head. “None of those.” Amura grinned, and Elain flushed. “Mate, then. But that’s your price, that secret.”

Amura shook their head. “Hardly, my lady Elain. The Cauldron knows that. I want something better. Something with more… feeling.”

“Just take me there.” Elain pointed her finger away from the docks. 

Amura nodded their head. “Of course. We shall find this High Lordling for you.”

Elain whipped her head at Amura, who had already wandered away to find a coach. Surely she wasn’t so obvious in her mission. If this strange fae could discern her motives in a moment, she needed to learn how to be more guarded. The pull that Elain felt in her core was somehow stronger now, and coming more frequently. She caught herself at all hours of the day placing her hand there, which might have been how Amura discerned her purpose. Clasping her hands in front of herself, Elain lifted her chin and pretended to survey the crowd. 

Amura came to her not long after, in what passed for a running, if uneven, gait. They curled their long fingers in Elain’s direction, beckoning. “I have found someone for us. Just the person. Just the ticket.”

Elain glanced back at the docks before she moved forward, in a show of second-guessing herself. She had known since she left Velaris that she was committed, but it was something of an instinct, this pretension at timidity.

She turned back towards Amura and lowered her chin before allowing herself to be led. 

The journey was never going to be easy. Not with Elain’s directions being the result of a moment checking her instincts. And not with Amura watching her slyly from the corner of the coach, clearly scheming about their payment.

Elain tried to keep from falling asleep, but Lucien was further away than she estimated. They traveled miles, over mountains and through valleys, before Elain let herself relax.

A night passed, the rocking of the coach and horses jolting her awake every so often before she settled back into sleep. When she woke the next morning, Elain saw the silhouette of a fortress in the distance, and knew that Lucien was located within. She sat up straight and glanced at Amura, who was grinning furiously, as if waiting for her to notice. 

Amura tilted their head in the direction of the castle. “There, Elain?”

“Yes.” Elain smoother her dress over her lap and blinked, trying to urge herself awake. She had a renewed sense of urgency, the bond taking on a thickness that seemed to give her more information. Lucien was in danger, that much was now clear. What she could do about it was less certain. Elain gritted her teeth together, preparing herself for whatever Lucien had dragged her into. 

The coachman who had led them this far refused to approach the castle proper. It was surround by gray forests that, Elain suspected, hadn’t borne fruit or meat to hunt in many years. It was the sort of place that beast and game alike would have fled, had there been any left. And yet the sky was a bright, impossible blue. Elain didn’t blame the man for keeping his distance. 

When she disembarked the coach, she turned to Amura. 

“What secret of mine do you want?” She would rather have not parted with something so precious, but what harm would it do, in the hands of a scavenging lesser fae?

Amura reached up and caressed Elain’s cheek with their long, nimble fingers. “I will find you, when I need it.”

Elain frowned. “No, tell me now. I need to go, and I would not leave with a debt unpaid.”

“Go,” Amura said. “I’ll find you.”

“When?” Elain asked.

“When the time suits me.” Amura turned and began limping the direction they had come from, as if it hadn’t taken them more than a day by coach and they could return at their leisure.

Turning, Elain surveyed the castle. Other than seeming dark and menacing, it didn’t seem to be inhabited. Surely going in by the front entrance wasn’t the best idea, but it wasn’t as if she could scale walls.

For the first time since she had been Made, Elain focused all of her energy on the tie that connected her to another person. She gasped, surprised that when she looked down, she didn’t see a rope tied around her waist. She could feel what Lucien felt, nearly feel the textures around him, but that was all. Apparently, sensations coming from the heart were going to be those she felt best.

With a shrug and renewed determination at nearly being free, Elain made her way to the castle. 

*****

Elain searched winding hallways, knowing the direction she needed to go in, but unable to find a clear path. It was as if the place had been made to ensnare anyone so unlucky as to attempt invasion. The afternoon was stretching into the evening when she noticed a nearly-hidden doorway and recognized it as where she needed to go.

When she approached the doorway, Elain found it locked. A quick and rather un-ladylike kick had her standing in its threshold in a moment. 

Huddled in a corner was Lucien, thinner than when she last saw him. He looked at her, and then past her. No, not past her, but around her, as if she had come with others. Elain frowned. Who else would he expect? Who else would he need? 

“Elain,” he said, his voice hoarse. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here for you.” She paused. “At least I think so.”

“You’re here to save me?” Lucien asked. 

Why Lucien Vanserra, the son of a High Lord, would need rescuing from some castle on the continent was not Elain’s concern. Yet she couldn’t help but wonder what kind of trouble he had gotten into with his new friends. Elain knelt next to him, relief flooding her at the idea that she could solve this problem and return to Feyre and Rhys and her window by the Sidra. 

“Elain.” Lucien said her name with the release of a breath, as if he had been waiting for her all along.

“Lucien,” she said. “What do you need?” 

He blinked. “What do you mean?”

Her hand swept over her midriff. “Here. You were calling me.”

Lucien swallowed. “I don’t know how. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was doing that.”

Elain frowned. “Well what should I do?”

Lucien lifted his wrists, chaffed from the steel that bound him. Not meant to harm, then. Merely to restrain. “Could you do something about these?”

“Like what?”

Lucien shrugged. “I don’t know. Did the Cauldron give you some kind of power? Can you glare at them so hard they fall off? Nesta probably could.”

Elain’s mouth narrowed and she sat back on her heels.

“Ok, not the time. I get it.” Lucien lowered his hands and face in penance. 

Elain lifted her hands, hesitated. “Can I?”

Lucien’s brow furrowed. “I think so. Why not?” 

“Well, you couldn’t, so why can I?” Elain asked.

“Ah,” Lucien answered, understanding coming into his face. “Enchantment. Koschei is a tricky bastard. You should know, Elain, that things are rarely what they seem.”

“Magic?” she asked. 

“Magic,” he said, confirming with a nod. 

“All right. I can do this, then.” Elain bit her bottom lip and examined the steel cuffs. There was so much about this new world she didn’t understand, and these iron cuffs were probably the least of her problems, especially if one took Koschei into account.

Elain touched the latch that held the metal together, and it fell open. She looked up at Lucien, surprised, and his expression matched her own.

“Do you know?” she began.

“No idea,” he answered, standing and rubbing his wrists. He reached his hand down to help her to her feet. “But we should leave.” 

Elain pushed herself up, ignoring Lucien’s proffered hand. He tucked it into his side, and Elain felt a twinge of regret.

She held her hand out to Lucien. “Let’s go.”

Lucien took one step forward, then another, then rested his hand on Elain’s palm. She gripped his fingers and pulled him behind her.

A deep voice sounded from the hallway before they stepped into it, and a dark figure rounded the corner. “So, she found you, did she Lucien?” 

A tall, thin, handsome man offered his hand to Elain. She had heard of people with eyes of pitch black, but none matched what she saw when she looked into his face. “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Archeron. My name is Koschei. Tzar of Life.”


End file.
